


hit the ground running

by orphan_account



Category: X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Moving Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: spoiler alert: he never catches him
Relationships: Cho Seungyeon | Seungyoun/Han Seungwoo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38
Collections: 99&UP Fic Fest





	hit the ground running

**Author's Note:**

> a few notes: 
> 
> 1\. sweet potato cake is delicious. try it if you ever get the chance.   
> 2\. i’m not sure if “partly accurate to the setting” is much better (if at all) than “not at all accurate to the setting”  
> 3\. thank u mily 4 keeping me going...

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“You should get more sleep.” Seungyoun’s voice is gentle, the angles of his face softened by the light of the convenience store. 

It’s hard to imagine him as anything less than perfect and beautiful, and it tugs at Seungwoo’s heart from inside of his chest, threatening to spurt blood out of his throat, hot and metallic in his mouth. 

Somehow, Seungyoun looks younger, bathing in nasty two AM lighting. His eyelashes fan out soft over his cheeks when he blinks and it reminds Seungwoo of a younger them, seated outside the same convenience store, same urge to kiss the worry off of Seungyoun’s face there then as what he feels now. 

Time is on no one’s side, not in this story at least, so Seungwoo does it; he leans forward to kiss Seungyoun, chapped lips against soft ones, to chase away the taste of his desire to escape himself. It’s easier this way, to picture him as parts of his whole. 

Like this, he’s harmless; like this, it’s easier to run.

* * *

  
  


_start._

* * *

“You’re graduating soon.”

They’re sitting on the curb outside of a convenience store near Seungwoo’s apartment when Seungwoo brings it up. It’s an unspoken agreement, he thinks, that they don’t talk about it (whatever “it” is supposed to be), so they had toed around the topic until now. 

Until now. Seungyoun thinks this conversation can be filed underneath “Words That Can Remain Unsaid”, but he’ll humour Seungwoo’s need to say them anyway because his patience for him is vast and boundless.

“Yeah,” Seungyoun snorts out a laugh. “If I wasn’t graduating soon, I’d be worried.” 

He sucks at the straw stabbed through his container of banana milk, chasing at the mix of air and remaining beverage at the bottom. There’s next to nothing left, but he lets the sound of the last drops of drink drain out the space between them. 

“I might go abroad?” 

Seungyoun stops sucking on his straw. He thinks he chokes a little on his finished banana milk. 

“Did I hear that right?”

Seungwoo doesn’t respond. If it’s to give himself time to think or to let the words sink into Seungyoun’s skin, Seungyoun doesn’t know, but the silence between them stretches out like syrup. 

But Seungwoo’s not one to mince his words, letting sharp edges cut before he’d dare to dream of sugarcoating. 

(His blunt approach works, or accomplishes whatever the fuck it’s supposed to accomplish, because Seungyoun’s at a loss for words now, something that’s rare in occurrence when it comes to himself.) 

“Wh… Where?” The words don’t feel real as they leave his mouth, so Seungyoun licks at his bottom lip to make sure it’s still there. He picks at the skin around his thumbnail — it’s a little bit like pinching himself — and waits for Seungwoo to start speaking again. 

“I got an offer to finish my studies in Australia. I want to pursue a graduate degree there.” 

This time, he definitely chokes on his drink. His throat feels raw as he pushes air out in a cough. It’s painful to swallow when his mouth is this dry and his tongue is stuck to the roof of it, but he does it anyway to push his heart back down his throat. 

Seungwoo doesn’t meet his eyes, instead choosing to talk to the bottle of _Yuja_ tea in his hands. “It’s a good opportunity,” he tells it. “I’ll have a chance to observe what I’m studying.” Silence, for a beat. “Marine biology works a lot better when there’s actual marine life to look at. Hands-on, or something.” 

Another second of silence. “It’s a four-year program.”

“That’s like… My whole life.” Seungyoun’s shock is muted, but he’s still surprised that Seungwoo’s only brought it up now. 

Seungwoo fiddles with the label on his drink as he continues to speak. Something about leaving in two months. Two months? Three? One and a half? He isn’t sure, having tuned Seungwoo out after “program”, and listens to himself breathe instead. In for two seconds. Hold for five. Out for three. Seungwoo’s voice still rings out through the night, bouncing back at Seungyoun from parked cars and catching in the grooves and dips of the pothole about two meters away from them.

Setting down his banana milk, Seungyoun watches Seungwoo turn his bottle of tea around in his fingers as he pretends to skim the nutrition facts label. He’ll drink it anyway, Seungyoun knows; he knows he couldn’t care less about the amount of sugar in his tea. 

Seungwoo’s like that: he’s the type to consider the sodium content in his _gochujang_ before he buys it, but also the type to make nutritional exceptions for his favourite drinks. He’s the type to let ink bleed into his knuckles overnight as he pores over papers, but ask Seungyoun to skip his Materials of Music III lecture to grab Isaac Toast with him. 

But after years of running next to him, years of colouring his knees and elbows black and blue and purple and the ugliest greens, it takes Seungyoun until twenty-four to realize that Seungwoo’s the type to sprint while everyone else is jogging, and the type to let blood run down through the scrapes on his knees while doing so. 

His knuckles brush against Seungyoun’s leg as he reaches down to put down his bottle of _Yuja_ tea, and in this barely-there space, Seungyoun feels like he’s four again, losing to a six-year-old Han Seungwoo at hide and seek. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Okay. So what if he’s leaving?” 

Jinhyuk’s voice is distorted through the phone, more of a crackle than a voice. Seungyoun hates that they have to talk about it, and it frustrates him that they’d even found their way to this subject of conversation. 

“He’s not going to leave forever.” Point for Jinhyuk. Seungyoun also hates that he’s right all the time. 

“So what if he’ll be back? I don’t want him to leave at all.” His bed is comfortable; Seungyoun’s elbow pushes into the mattress to keep his phone pressed against his ear as he stares at the ceiling light in his room. 

“You’re being dramatic. Who cares if he _does_ leave forever?” 

“That’s exactly it, asshole. I care.” Seungyoun whines, turning onto his stomach, bedsheets spread around him in a crumpled mess. “And what if he does? Australia has ocean and fish too. He’s going to think the fish there are cooler than the fish here. You know Seungwoo! Nerdy... Likes fish… It’s literally the reason he’s going into marine biology.”

He doesn’t need to see him to know that Jinhyuk’s rolling his eyes at his antics. 

“Correction. Obsessed with fish.” 

It’s another Seungyoun-presented-problem-looking-for-a-Jinhyuk-solution type of conversation, but Seungyoun doesn’t think this one’s shaping up to be of much help to him.

“He can come back on his holidays,” Jinhyuk deadpans. “Christmas? They have that there.”

Maybe it’s kind of rude, but Seungyoun lets out a brittle laugh at the absurdity of his suggestion.

“I can’t expect him to spend his money like that. Just to come here? He’s been doing fine staying _out_ of contact with his family.” Seungyoun flips onto his back so he can stare at the ceiling. “Two visits? Within like what? Three years?” 

“He calls his sister,” Jinhyuk offers from the other end. He doesn’t sound convinced by his own words, but Seungyoun can’t tell if it’s not just the bad connection. 

“The last time he called her was in January.” 

Midnight of December thirty-first, if Jinhyuk wanted to get technical about it, but the details aren’t that important. “Right before the New Year.” 

Jinhyuk scoffs at him and Seungyoun can hear the sound of him rolling his eyes at him through the phone (again), but Seungyoun ignores it and keeps on going, voice dry. “It’s October now. In case you forgot.” 

“Okay, so, he can call you every January too! Problem solved.”

“That’s the worst solution I’ve ever heard from you.”

“Then let’s physically contain him in Korea. I’ll bring my fucking glue gun and everything. Mission objective: the soles of Seungwoo’s feet.”

“I’m gonna wipe that shitty grin off your face.” It takes a second for Seungyoun to remember that they’re not speaking face to face. “Through the phone. I’ll find a way.” 

“We’ll steal his passport?”

“These are some of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard, and I’m friends with Hangyul.”

“Fine.”

The conversation fizzles out between them, which is okay since Seungyoun likes the quiet; the ability to hear his own thoughts provides the illusion of peace. But Seungyoun can also hear the sound of frantic clicking from Jinhyuk’s end before a sudden “Aw, that’s annoying”. 

“Are you… ” he squints. “Are you playing Overwatch?”

“Yeah.” Clicking again. “I just respawned.”

Silence broken by the sound of Jinhyuk’s keyboard widens the gap between them, the rush hour traffic pouring in through Seungyoun’s open window adding to the dull sound of nothing. Talking with Jinhyuk is supposed to help him “cope with his feelings” or something, but the tight feeling in his chest grows tighter the longer the subject of conversation remains as ‘Seungwoo’s Graduation’. 

Seungyoun knows Jinhyuk is trying to help him; he knows he’s fraying at his patience. “I just don’t know what to do.” He tries to make it sound like an “Even if you’re my best friend your ideas are terrible”, but Seungyoun thinks it comes out more like something along the lines of “I’m pathetic and I need your help”. 

Jinhyuk sighs into the receiver. It feels like he’s breathing straight into Seungyoun’s ear, but Seungyoun supposes this is as far as Jinhyuk will verbally acknowledge the extent of his pathetic-ness. 

“Then ask him to stay.”

“I can’t. That’s sabotage.”

Jinhyuk sighs again, louder this time. Seungyoun flinches. To ask Seungwoo to stay would be selfish, but the sound of the blood rushing to Seungyoun’s head is pounding in his ears and drowns out the sound of Jinhyuk’s sighs, colouring possibilities red.

“Well…” As if he had just read Seungyoun’s mind, Jinhyuk breaks the silence. “Maybe you’re allowed to be a little selfish,” he continues slowly. “Ask.”

The word “ask” is as close to a slap in the face as Jinhyuk’s palm against his cheek would be, red and stinging. 

(Something he’d never do, regardless, because Seungyoun knows he’s too kind to hurt him. Not like that, at least. Maybe with truth he could cause damage. Not his hands.)  
  


Seungyoun shrinks in on himself, drawing his legs in toward his chest. His voice is small when he speaks again. 

“I can’t.” _Because asking him to stay would fuck up what we have now._

Because being selfish would break his bones more than Seungwoo’s departure would rip him apart, and selfishness has no place between the two of them, not in this three-month window that lingers between them and distance. Seungyoun’s fingers blister from stitching his tendons back to where they meet bone; he has to move quickly to patch the tears Seungwoo leaves in his wake, but the wounds are messy, mangled flesh nearly beyond repair. 

But Seungyoun, if nothing else, is patient. He lets his mercy run unbound for Seungwoo, and stays silent, swallowing down the blood crawling its way up his throat. 

And Jinhyuk, too, is patient. “At least say something.” His voice is softer now, tendency towards teasing seeming to escape him as he reaches an arm out to drag Seungyoun from murky waters. “Before he goes.” 

“Jinhyuk–” The rest of what Seungyoun was about to say gets caught in his throat. He’s not ready to let the words leave his tongue: not ready to say that “ankle-deep” means “drowning” to him, not ready to admit that the spear pierced through his lungs is letting oxygen out where it’s supposed to be kept in. One breath in, one breath out. Two breaths. 

“I feel like I’m on some Edgar Allen Poe shit. Be still, my heart-that-which-beats-beneath-my-floorboards.” Nervous laughter escapes Seungyoun, and it sounds alien in his own ears. Funny how he’s unable to be serious when it really counts. 

“Hey,” Jinhyuk speaks up, sucking away the loud _thump thump thump_ that Seungyoun can hear echoing through the room. Silence for one beat. Two beats. 

“You’ve been chasing for too long.”

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  


**_hanseung_ **

**_01:47 AM_ **

Busy?

**_You_ **

**_2:03 AM_ **

no

why

**_hanseung_ **

**_2:03 AM_ **

Lets talk?

**_hanseung_ **

**_2:12 AM_ **

Want to see you

_Read 2:24 AM_

  
  
  


(Hangyul eyes Seungyoun’s figure in the doorway from his spot in front of the television when he shrugs on a jacket at 2:31 AM.

Putting his cup ramyeon down on the coffee table, he lets out a low whistle. “Booty call?”

Seungyoun rolls his eyes as he tugs on his shoes, pushing them on from left foot to right foot. This is not the party life he _could_ be living; comically far from it, really. 

“More like a butt dial. Nice try though.”)

  
  


* * *

He finds the other at the same convenience store again, a week later, a week closer to Seungwoo’s departure. Seungwoo looks small beneath the fluorescent flickering of the store’s sign, thin fingers toying with the straw in his container of coffee milk. The harsh lighting makes his cheekbones appear more defined than they are—inking by the base of his neck visible past the edge of his shirt—and he’s near translucent under the yellow-white street light glow. His legs stretch out over the curb and dip into the street, wide-leg pants pooling over his ankles. 

The streetlights shine just shy of Seungyoun, and though he figures Seungwoo doesn’t need to see him to know he’s there, he breaks the silence. 

“You shouldn’t drink coffee this late at night. You won’t be able to sleep later.” 

Seungwoo hums, not looking up from where his fingers strangle the thin straw in his drink. He squeezes at it almost rhythmically, stirring at the coffee inside the container. 

“I think I’m staying in Seoul. My family is here. Jinhyuk and Wooseok are here,” he pauses. “Almost everyone is.” _Everyone except for you._

Seungyoun takes a seat, lowering himself onto the curb next to Seungwoo. 

“You know, I’ll still have citizenship when I leave,” Seungwoo says as he rests his drink on the ground next to his foot. “I have to come back for military service whether I like it or not.” 

“Good. You can’t escape us forever, no matter how many fish you look at.”

“Hey!” Seungwoo laughs in defiance, convinced that his interest in fish is validated. “At least I don’t hole myself up in my room for two days just to decide whether I should put a clap or a snap in my next track,” he argues with absolutely no fervor and throws his straw wrapper at Seungyoun. “It’s just a fucking percussion thing. Pick one and go!”

“Shut up,” Seungyoun groans, laughing breathily in response. “At least I’m employed.”

Seungwoo leans into his shoulder, pushing him over with the weight of his body. “I _think_ like claps. Claps are superior.” 

Under the gross convenience store lighting, it feels like he can see through Seungwoo’s flesh, skin stretched thin over a frame of hollow bones. He imagines Seungwoo’s muscles are pinned tight to tendons, pinned tight against porcelain bone, stringy veins and arteries threading through and around. 

He looks worse for wear, skin sallow either from bad sleep or the unflattering lighting of 3 am. 

Both, maybe; probably. 

Seungyoun leans in to study Seungwoo’s face more closely because he’s worried. 

“Have you been sleeping okay?” He brings his hand up to brush his thumb at the bruises that hang beneath his eyes and furrows his eyebrows at their purple because he’s worried. 

Seungyoun lets his gaze drop to Seungwoo’s mouth, lips pink-stained and raw, and that is not because he is worried. 

Seungwoo’s so close he can feel his breath on his skin, but Seungyoun doesn’t back away. Instead, he traces over Seungwoo’s features with his gaze, _two_ _eyes, nose, lips, jaw_ , and presses at his cheekbone where purple fades into skin. 

He’s aware that Seungwoo’s not meeting his eyes, but he pretends that he’s not aware of how Seungwoo’s also been staring at his lips the whole time. 

The night is cool, but the space between them is thick and suffocating; he’s aware of the unbearable tension that lingers between them, of the turning in his stomach, and of how he feels so _sick_ right now. 

“You should get more sleep.” 

Seungwoo looks terrible, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. He could be fragile, like this, thin frame leaning into the press of Seungyoun’s fingers.

Seungyoun wants to reach out and touch the exhaustion away, but before he can, he feels a warm pair of lips against his own. It takes him a second to notice them, to notice that they’re chapped from days at wearing away at the thin skin there. 

Seungwoo’s thumbs knead into his hips, tight like he’s trying to keep himself grounded. 

Seungyoun doesn’t know what it is that possesses him to let his eyes flutter closed and lean into Seungwoo’s touches, feather-light but scorching where skin meets skin. He's not sure what it is that takes over him and lets him kiss Seungwoo back, Seungwoo's hands warm on his skin. 

Seungyoun runs his thumb over Seungwoo’s wrist bones as he lets Seungwoo lick into his mouth, movements lazy and drawn out like he has all the time in the world. He doesn’t. 

Seungwoo shudders when Seungyoun digs a thumbnail crescent into where flesh conceals his ulnar artery, a reminder to himself that the time they have is limited to two and a half months. 

It’ll be okay to drown himself in Seungwoo just this once, maybe, but like this, he’s dangerous: like this, it’s harder to run.

“Hey.” Seungyoun pushes Seungwoo back by his shoulders, breaking away to breathe. His head is spinning and the hair on his arms stand on end. 

“In front of a convenience store? That’s really sexy of us.” 

It’s suddenly cold now that they don’t share the same space anymore, and Seungwoo no longer looks so grand under the yellow street lighting. 

Seungyoun picks up Seungwoo’s empty bottle of coffee milk and pushes himself up to throw it out. 

“Well,” Seungwoo’s voice is small, stretched thin over his teeth. He’s staring at Seungyoun, and in the dim lighting, Seungyoun knows there’s a multitude of things that threaten to spill out from behind his kiss-swollen lips. 

But the words Seungwoo lets roll off his tongue echo through Seungyoun’s ears even after he’s left for home. 

“If not now, then when?”

  
  


* * *

  
  


He kicks his shoes off in the doorway when he gets home, and stumbles his way into the washroom he shares with Hangyul.

“Hyung?” The sound of a door opening. “You’re back earlier than I thought.” 

Seungyoun doesn’t respond and instead stares himself in the eye through his bathroom mirror as he tries desperately to scrub the bitter taste of Seungwoo’s skin off his tongue. 

It doesn’t work, so he sits crouched against his sink with his legs tucked into his chest. His bones feel heavy, the veins winding through the flesh of his feet green against pale skin. He wishes they ran red with jello blood, that his toenails could trim themselves, and that the calluses on his heels would disappear so he’d have no physical mark of the distance he’s run to get here. 

It takes Hangyul thirty minutes and a promise to clean the water off the floor until he lets himself be pulled up to sleep in his bed, and not against the cold ceramic tiles.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


“I can’t believe we didn’t buy him flowers.” Jinhyuk’s standing in the doorway, soju, beer, Wooseok, and who-knows-what-else in tow. 

“What the fuck?” Hangyul raises his head from where it’s rested on Yohan’s lap to look incredulously toward where Jinhyuk and Wooseok are standing in the doorway. “He’s not dying or anything. Why the hell does he need flowers?”

“Because he’s allergic enough to them for his nose to start running, but not allergic _enough_ that he’ll die from anaphylactic shock,” Wooseok pipes up from behind Jinhyuk. Bags of snacks and beer foods (including chicken feet, no doubt) hang from his arms. “Just to give him a little nudge in the crying direction.” 

“Oh, yeah.” Hangyul rolls his eyes, letting his head fall back to where it was previously comfortable on Yohan’s thigh. “Obviously.”

“Personally, I think the sweet potato cake is enough. And the multiple types of alcohol that Wooseok and Jinhyuk are dragging in through the door right now.” Seungyoun is close behind the two of them with a box of honey sweet potato cake from Paris Baguette in his arms. He has to step over the case of beer that Jinhyuk had set in the doorway upon his entry to put on a pair of slippers. 

“Can you move your shit? It’s in my way.”

“Sorry our beer is in the way of your Doraemon slippers,” Jinhyuk snarks as he walks back to pick up the box. “Not my fault you’re still on your bamboo helicopter freak shit.” 

Yohan nearly jumps out of his seat on the couch, throwing Hangyul off of him as he holds up his phone. “Seungwoo-hyung’s coming in five!” 

A second of silence fills the room as he stands in his spot and they all stare at Hangyul’s figure on the floor. Hangyul raises a thumbs up in a sign that he’s okay. “I’m okay.” 

Yohan winces, not really sorry. “Sorry.” 

It’s been a month since Seungyoun’s last been in the same room as Seungwoo, his effort to avoid the other man disguised under the pretenses of being busy with work, if their message history says anything. 

Maybe “sry hyung. busy today” is not a well-developed excuse, but he _was_ able to complete a few projects in the meantime, including a track for an up-and-coming indie singer’s debut album, so Seungyoun supposes his flimsy attempts at escaping contact are justified.

His success is short-lived, however, Jinhyuk one day suggesting that they have a get-together (or an “old people party”, in the words of Junho) in a formal honouring of Seungwoo’s departure and Wooseok’s birthday. 

Seungwoo doesn’t leave until December and Wooseok’s already turned twenty-four a while ago, but according to Wooseok, “it’s fine to scrape together a last-ditch effort at celebration, as long as it’s fun”. Extra cake is just a bonus to them and to everyone else involved. 

Like this, Seungyoun finds the five (soon to be six) of them crowded in his and Hangyul’s apartment on a Saturday night. _Dakbal_ , _jjajangmyeon_ , _sundae_ , and _tteok_ sit on the kitchen table in plastic containers waiting to be eaten, while Hangyul, Yohan, Jinhyuk, and Wooseok sit on the couch in the living room, that, by some miracle, manages to fit four full-grown men. 

It’s then that Seungwoo comes in through the door, empty-handed except for a glass container filled with stacks of seafood _pajeon_ in hand. 

“Party’s here,” Wooseok calls from the couch. He’s squished in between Jinhyuk and one of the couch arms, a can of beer somehow already in hand.

Yohan whoops, throwing his hands up and nearly smacking Hangyul in the process. “Let’s eat! I’m hungry!” 

“Can you watch where you fling your limbs?” Hangyul’s leaning away from him and into Jinhyuk, afraid of any and all punching power Yohan possesses. “I can’t go places with a black eye and then tell people my best friend punched me in the face. That’s not a cool story.”

Yohan opens his mouth to protest, pointing a finger at Hangyul before Hangyul interrupts him. “Actually, maybe it is a cool story. It _could_ be a cool story.”

Seungyoun walks over to where Seungwoo stands by the door, setting a pair of slippers on the floor for him. 

“Thanks. I hate walking around bare-socked.” 

“Jinhyuk makes fun of me for it,” Seungyoun stretches a foot out to look at the Doraemon design on his slipper. “I like these slippers.” 

Seungwoo laughs, at him or with him Seungyoun’s not sure, but he looks cute with the pink slippers on his feet and his eyes crinkling into crescents. 

“Hey,” Jinhyuk yells, distributing food and drinks to the other three in the kitchen. “Come inside! The food’s going to get cold. We’ll drink everything without you two.” 

Seungyoun takes the _pajeon_ from Seungwoo, no longer sure if the red dusting his cheeks is from the chilly outside air or something else. 

“Ho!” Yohan calls out from somewhere in the living room area, bottle of soju raised in the air. “Let us eat, drink, and be merry!” 

“You sound so stupid right now.”

“Wooseok-hyung, that’s mean,” he whines, taking a long sip of his drink. 

It doesn’t take long for them to settle in. Something about being with people you’ve known for a long time, Seungyoun supposes, that lets them all ease into the comfortable atmosphere. 

Time slips away from them by the hour, and before long, Yohan’s drunk off of soju and Wooseok’s trying to get someone to fight him, while Hangyul and Jinhyuk watch them squabble. 

Seungwoo, however, is oddly quiet, choosing to sit back and watch the chaos unfold before him. Seungyoun thinks he looks nice in his green sweater, v-neck letting his tattoos peek out from behind pine coloured wool. His face is blank as he nurses another can of beer, but it turns out that that’s his “a-little-drunk-and-also-scheming-up-something-dumb-to-do” face. 

“Let’s play a drinking game.”

He doesn’t raise his voice, but it’s enough to get Yohan and Wooseok to look up from where the elder is sending an audio message to Junho from Yohan’s phone. 

Jinhyuk sets down his beer, turning to face Seungwoo. “Never have I ever?” 

Seungyoun snorts. “Pass the soju.” 

They play for a while, throwing good-natured questions around the circle, but things start going to shit once Hangyul says, “Never have I ever been a national taekwondo champion.”

(Yohan drains the rest of his half-full bottle of soju at that, and sends the next ‘never’: “Never have I ever gotten a cold from standing in the ocean for too long in the middle of March.”

Seungwoo whines something about “not signing up for a round of targeted bullying, this is supposed to be fun, Yohanie”, and clings onto Seungyoun’s side because “you’re the only one here who loves me, Youn-ah”.

Seungyoun pushes Seungwoo off of himself in a fit of giggles when Seungwoo goes, saying “Never have I ever produced a track for a kpop group,” all while smiling dumbly at Seungyoun’s face.

“What the fuck, hyung. Now you’re the bully.” Seungyoun whines and Seungwoo laughs so hard he almost falls over.)

“Okay,” Wooseok looks around the circle, bringing the game back in and eyeing his way around the group from Yohan to Seungwoo to Jinhyuk back to Yohan. “Never have I ever told one of the kids a dirty secret about myself.”

Yohan picks up his bottle of soju, groaning, and so do Hangyul, Seungwoo, and Jinhyuk. 

Wooseok laughs, throwing his head back and leaning into Jinhyuk’s side. “I’m not surprised about Yohan and Seungwoo, but Hangyul? Who did you tell?”

“I’m not telling you the secret,” Hangyul says, and knocks back a mouthful of alcohol before answering. “It was Hyeongjun. But he asked first.” 

Yohan puts his drink down before clapping once and saying, “Okay. My turn. Never have I ever kissed my best friend.” He throws a look in Wooseok and Jinhyuk’s direction as he speaks, goofy smile on his face doing nothing to hide his intentions. 

Wooseok, Jinhyuk, Seungwoo, and Seungyoun all drink. No one asks for it, but Jinhyuk explains anyways. 

“It’s how we started dating,” he says, not even so much as glancing at Wooseok. 

Hangyul opens his mouth, turning to Seungyoun as if he’s about to say something before shutting it. Before he has a chance to continue, Seungwoo shuts down the game. 

“Okay!” He stands, picking up his empty soju bottles. “Cake time!” Suddenly, somehow, he’s completely sober, a serious-ish expression taking over his features. However serious you can get having just semi-humiliating yourself through a game of never have I ever, but Seungwoo manages. 

They sing happy birthday, addressing it to Seungwoo too. Seungwoo complains that he’s not officially turning twenty-six until December, at which Jinhyuk slaps him on the shoulder and says “It’s never too early for a birthday celebration, old man.” 

It’s too warm inside so Seungyoun takes his cake with him outside onto the balcony. He sits himself down on the cement ground, underneath where his and Hangyul’s shared laundry line hangs. The air is cold and sharp as it hits his face, but it sobers him up a little bit. 

He hears the sliding door drag open, and he doesn’t check who it is but a part of him knows by their steps that it’s Seungwoo who’s holding his own plate of cake and another can of beer as he approaches Seungyoun. 

Seungwoo sits down next to him. It’s quiet for a little before he says anything. “I told you before I told anyone else. Before I called my parents to let them know I was moving a few thousand kilometers away.

“You know, it kind of feels like being a formaldehyde animal.” Seungyoun pauses, sucking in a sharp breath of cold air before putting his plate of cake down. He hasn’t eaten any of it yet, but these thoughts have been swimming around in his head since the last time they kissed so he lets them crawl out of his mouth, one by one until they reach Seungwoo. 

Seungwoo doesn’t ask what he means when he says that, and waits for him to explain, which is one of Seungyoun’s favourite things about him, if anyone were to ask. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately), no one’s asked before. 

“Like one of the rats that high schoolers dissect in those American movies that Yohan likes to make us watch.”

“None of them want to touch you, which is good, because you don’t want to be touched either, but the ones who _do_ touch you, are excited to, even, are the ‘freaks’ that try to pull off your legs, or tear out your spinal cord.” Seungyoun takes a bite of cake, letting his words linger in the air before he keeps talking.

And Seungwoo makes no motion of trying to stop Seungyoun from talking, so Seungyoun talks. 

“Sometimes, I’m the rat with its spinal cord getting torn out. Or, I wish I was the rat with its spinal cord getting torn out. Did you know? That when you cut those things open, you can see their blood vessels? They’re suspended with this chemical that makes them look freakishly blue or red, and the brains and heart look like a gross marrying of the blue and red of the veins and arteries running through them. Kind of this nasty bruise purple colour.

I’m not sure what point I was trying to make with this, but what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want you to go. But, also, you should leave. Get away from us.” 

Seungwoo rests his elbows on his knees. “You make it sound like I don’t like it here.”

“There’s no ocean here. What reason do you have to like it?”

“You’re here. Like you said, you’re here, and everyone else is here too. There’s a lot of reasons, but those are the number one.”

Seungyoun laughs, dry and brittle. “You’ve had too much to drink.”

This time, it’s Seungyoun who kisses Seungwoo first, swift and delicate against the corner of his mouth, because the middle of the night makes him feel pretty and real. 

He feels like a child again, trying not to get caught for stealing candies, trying not to get caught by Seungwoo in a game of tag. 

And as he ducks away, he catches Seungwoo’s eyes, dark and filled longing, heavier than they’ve been before.

He feels Seungwoo’s fingers around his wrist, softly tugging him in, and he doesn’t resist it, lets himself get pulled in by his touch. 

Seungwoo leans in and kisses him slowly, gently cupping the side of Seungyoun’s face with his palm, and it’s softer this time. Sweeter this time. Butterflies tumble in Seungyoun’s stomach and he feels like a teenager, lightheaded as he kisses someone for the first time. But the smell of alcohol on his breath and the taste of it on his tongue remind Seungyoun that they’re not teenagers, that this is right now, that Seungwoo’s paper-thin skin is pale and _immediate_. 

His head is a little fuzzy, maybe not just because of the alcohol running through his veins, so he lets himself ease into Seungwoo’s touch. He tells himself that his eyes sting behind his eyelids, hot from something unnameable that fills the pit of his stomach, because Seungwoo is so good for him, melting so easily in his hands, so he ignores the burn and chases after Seungwoo’s lips. 

Seungwoo’s fingers migrate from where they’re brushing at his cheekbone to thread themselves through his hair, tugging gently at the roots to pull him closer, and Seungyoun gasps into his mouth at the sensation. 

“I’ll come back for _Chuseok_ ,” Seungwoo whispers, breath warm and lips just barely grazing Seungyoun’s. 

Seungyoun reaches back to find where Seungwoo’s hand rests in his hair and leans back slightly, just enough to look Seungwoo in the eye. “You’re lying.” 

“I’m not.” Seungwoo pulls him back in to kiss gently at his jaw and neck. He’s flush against him now, their shared warmth chasing away the bite of the cold air. “Not this time.”

Seungyoun thinks he can feel where his blood beats beneath the skin of Seungwoo’s lips, rushing loud like a live river. 

“Let’s go inside.” Seungwoo’s the one who pushes him away this time, standing up and reaching out a hand in an offer to help Seungyoun up. 

Seungyoun doesn’t take it, pushing himself off of the cold cement ground, and heads back toward the glow of inside his apartment. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


In the meantime, Seungyoun drowns himself in his work. He hides himself in his wire jungle, deep in the safety of his acoustic padding and MIDI boards. 

And it works, for a while. He traps himself within the four walls of his semi-soundproofed in-home studio and doesn’t leave his room unless it’s for an in-studio (the real kind, not his apartment setup) recording.

On day five, Hangyul tries to force him to eat something. “Listen,” he calls, the sound of his voice muffled through the door. “If you don’t come out of your room and eat something, I’ll come in and unplug all your shit.”

Seungyoun ignores him, turning up the volume of the audio clip he’s playing to drown out the sound of Hangyul’s voice with the backup vocals he recorded yesterday. 

“I’m gonna call Seungwoo-hyung.”

Apparently, that’s all it takes for Seungyoun to haul ass to the door. “Don’t,” he says as he flings it open to reveal Hangyul standing at the door with a roll of plastic covered _kimbap_ from GS25.

“Eat.”

“I ate. I had ramyeon.”

“That was two days ago.”

“I’m not hungry,” Seungyoun says, right as his stomach makes a low grumbling noise. 

Hangyul quirks an eyebrow at him, pushing the _kimbap_ in his direction. “Hyung, you can’t keep hiding in here, you know. It kind of smells.”

“I’m busy. I have projects to finish.”

“No, you’re not. That track is due a month from now,” Hangyul argues as he unwraps the _kimbap_. “From what I can hear through the walls, it’s almost done already.”

“Okay, well–” Seungyoun tries, knowing full well that he has no more lies left on his tongue, but he’s interrupted by Hangyul shoving a piece of _kimbap_ into his open mouth. 

Hangyul grabs Seungyoun by his forearm, pulling him out of his room into the hallway. When Hangyul opens his mouth to speak, his voice is gentle, not angry. “Jinhyuk-hyung told me that you haven’t been calling him back.” He pauses, searching Seungyoun’s face for something, waiting for him to look back at him.

Seungyoun feels like he’s being dissected, the depths of his brain being itched at for answers. 

“Jinhyuk-hyung also said that you haven’t been calling or texting Seungwoo-hyung back.”

He has none to give. 

He’s been getting tired of running anyway, tired of ducking away from Seungwoo to hide behind dollhouse furniture, plastic chairs and couches doing nothing to protect him from the truths he’s trying to avoid. 

“It’s like I’d follow him to the ends of the earth.” Seungyoun sucks in a breath, holds on to the air in his lungs until it feels like his chest could burst, and then lets it escape. He doesn’t clarify who—he’s not exactly sure, come to think of it, and Hangyul doesn’t ask, anyway—but it doesn’t take much for either of them to know that he’s talking about Seungwoo. Always Seungwoo. “I’d follow him to the ends of the earth as long as the ends of the earth means _here_. Somewhere within this space near my recording studio or something; whatever.”

He sinks onto the hallway floor, back pushed against the wall, because he feels like his knees could give way any second now. 

“And then I feel hypocritical because that’s not supposed to be what that idiom means.”

Hangyul is good at listening, letting silence fill in the gaps where words would feel hollow. He doesn’t try to get him to move, but sits across from him, back against the opposite wall, and nods, a sign for Seungyoun to keep going. 

“I don’t want to be the one who runs after him,” Seungyoun says, letting his head fall back to knock against the wall. “Did you know that? I feel like I’ve been chasing this impossible person since before elementary school. I always lost at tag because he’s faster than me, still is, but I always played whenever he asked.” 

He’s staring at the ceiling now, talking more to the incandescent light above him than to Hangyul. “And when I lost he’d say that we can get ice cream afterward. It was always ice cream in the summer and warm _Yuja_ tea in the winter.”

“He still drinks that same tea even though he always complains about it being too sweet. And now I’m rambling because I don’t know how to let go of things that I hold onto too tightly.”

Hangyul hums in half-understanding. 

“Did you know? I kissed him that night, on the balcony. Right outside there,” Seungyoun says, pointing in the general direction of their kitchen. “It was cold outside but he felt warm. Alive.” 

“You’re in love with him.”

“Maybe.”

“You are.” Hangyul flips the kimbap back and forth between his two hands. “Do you wish he wasn’t? Alive?” 

Seungyoun coughs in surprise. “Well, I don’t wish he was _dead_.” His voice goes quiet, but he doesn’t try to bring the tension back. “I just wish he didn’t have to go. Even more than I want to be selfish about him, tell him that I need him, I think…” Seungyoun trails off, 

Hangyul throws the roll of _kimbap_ onto his lap. 

“Why.”

Hangyul shrugs. “Reality check? You seem like you needed one.” 

“What is that supposed to _mean_?”

“You think too much. You say it all the time, ‘I think’. Don’t think, just do. He’s leaving. It’s not that hard to tell him how you feel.”

“I don’t think too much.”

Hangyul scoffs. “Yes, you do. You spent so long trying to pick a single MIDI keyboard and in the end, you ended up buying two of them. And that’s just when it’s about work. I know and _you know_ that you don’t care about work nearly as much as the people around you. Especially Seungwoo-hyung.”

“It’s healthy self-reflection,” Seungyoun defends, sniffing at the air. “It does smell kind of weird.”

“Hyung!” Hangyul laughs, deep and warm as he moves to get up. “Just think about what I said, okay?” 

Seungyoun smiles too, because it’s impossible not to when Hangyul is so patient with him despite all his bullshit. 

He echoes strength, the firm, reliable kind, and Seungyoun wishes he could be a little bit braver, stand a little bit taller, as he watches Hangyul retreat down the hall. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

**_seunu-hyung_ **

**_11:09 PM_ **

I want midnight ramyeon ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅜㅜ 

**_You_ **

**_11:18 PM_ **

hyung

youll be bloated tmr

**_seunu-hyung_ **

**_11:18 PM_ **

I’m on the plane tomorrow!

Its ok 

**_hanseung_ **

**_11:23 PM_ **

Youn-ahhhh

I miss you TT

**_You_ **

**_11:24 PM_ **

ok im coming

ill bring you ramyeon its too cold outside to go there together

* * *

  
  


Seungwoo’s door is unlocked when Seungyoun arrives at his apartment. He takes his shoes off on the welcome mat by the door, pushing them to the side as nicely as he can with his socked feet—because his hands are full—and uses his elbow to push the door closed again. 

“Hyung?”

“Younie?” Seungwoo calls from somewhere inside his apartment. “I’m still packing some things. You can put the ramyeon on the kitchen counter.”

“Okay. Slippers?”

“Closet. Slide the door open.”

Seungyoun steps into a pair of slippers before making his way inside to put the drinks and uncooked ramyeon on the kitchen table and to put his coat on the couch. 

He barely sits down before Seungwoo pads into the kitchen dressed in a loose t-shirt and wide leg pants.

He looks exhausted, but it’s kind of funny, because “Hyung,” Seungyoun giggles, “Is that all you wear?”

Seungwoo whines, “This is my style, Youn-ah, I’ve been dressing like this for _ever_.” He drapes himself over Seungyoun’s back and rests his head on his shoulder, nuzzling into his neck. 

“Hyung,” Seungyoun says to the arms hanging over to his shoulders. “Since I bought the ramyeon, you have to cook it.”

“Younie only knows how to bully his hyungs,” Seungwoo sing-songs, clinging tighter to Seungyoun’s neck. “Hyung is tired from packing.”

Seungyoun pinches Seungwoo’s arm and shifts his weight away from Seungwoo to shrug him off gently.

“I get it.” Seungyoun tries not to sound bitter, but his emotions bleed through his words. It’s not worth his effort to try and hide it anymore. Seungwoo should know too. “You’re leaving, moving on, going to do better things, and I’m staying here. Not doing any of that. It’s okay. You don’t need to play games with me anymore.”

“I haven’t moved on yet, because apparently, I don’t know how to do that.” His chest constricts when he speaks, heart beating a little faster now because he didn’t expect it to hurt so much to verbalize. “But it’s okay. I’ll figure it out. I’m used to it.”

“I’m not allowed to leave? To pursue something? I said I’d visit you.” Seungwoo’s voice is soft, filled with patience for Seungyoun, always patient, _especially_ patient when it comes to Seungyoun, and Seungyoun wishes he wouldn’t be so willing to bend and break for him. 

“And that’s a lie; we both _know_ it.” Seungyoun regrets saying anything as soon as the words leave his tongue because they sound a little too harsh and rough around the edges. 

He also wishes he didn’t see Seungwoo’s face as he felt himself say it, because the weary expression he wears from running a race that isn’t his own weighs heavier than either of them would have liked it to.

Seungwoo sounds tired when he looks up at Seungyoun to ask, “What reason do I have to lie to you?” 

Seungyoun takes a deep breath and tries to steady his voice from wobbling as he speaks. “You don’t need to kiss me anymore like you mean something when you do it. Don’t need to touch me like I’ll crack beneath your fingertips.”

He doesn’t meet Seungwoo’s eyes, instead choosing to stare at the ceiling light and let its ugly yellow glow dull the feeling of tears pricking at his eyes. “Every time you kiss me, it feels like a lie, and I wish I could tell you that I close my eyes to imagine that it’s not you, but I can’t. I want to pretend that you’re mine and that we’re not running ourselves in circles. I’m not sure which one it is, but anything other than reality is okay because I hate that my mouth tastes bitter each time.” 

Seungyoun glances down at Seungwoo, but he’s silent, cheeks pink from the indoor warmth. His fingers tapping against his upper thigh are the only sign that he’s still _here_. 

Seungwoo usually picks and chooses his words carefully, but Seungyoun thinks that what he says next is nothing short of reckless. 

“I love you.”

Seungyoun laughs dryly. His heart is beating so hard in his chest that it’s threatening to jump out, and he’s aware of the hair on the back of his neck standing up in the cold, blood pounding hard through his veins. He’s short of breath and the stinging in his eyes amplifies the heavy feeling of his chest being crushed. 

“Don’t say that. You’re leaving tomorrow. Today.”

“I love you,” Seungwoo says, louder this time, with more conviction. He looks Seungyoun in the eye and gets up from his seat on the curb before he continues. “I love what I study, and I know I’m going to be gone, but I love you and I’ve loved you for a long time now.”

This Seungwoo looks tired, like he’s been tossing and turning in his sleep, if he’s been sleeping at all. 

But the exhaustion that makes itself known through his eyes is not from physical exertion; Seungyoun knows Seungwoo’s sleepless nights are not from insomnia. 

“Don’t make that face.” Seungyoun turns away. He doesn’t want to look at Seungwoo, doesn’t want to see his face, doesn’t want to see how burned out he looks. “It makes me want to kiss whatever it is that’s making you sad off of your face.”

“Then come here and kiss me.” Seungwoo’s voice trembles as he speaks, desperation bleeding through his words. “Please.”

Seungyoun freezes. He doesn’t move forward to kiss him because _this is a trap, it has to be_ ; Seungwoo’s lying, he has to be. 

Seungwoo steps closer, taking Seungyoun’s cold hand in his own. “Do you know when I first started?” 

Seungwoo tugs Seungyoun forward, holds him close, and Seungyoun feels so small in the middle of the vast night, in the center of Seungwoo’s apartment kitchen. 

“You were seven years old and you asked if I’d still be your friend even when I was going to go back to Busan that summer. I laughed, because I thought it was so ridiculous, but you were so serious about it. As if I’d forget about my favourite person in the world just because I saw some water and ate some seafood.”

Seungwoo pauses, taking in a shaky breath, and Seungyoun can hear the unsteadiness in his voice. 

“That entire trip, I kept thinking about how nice it would be if you were there.” Seungwoo’s face is barely centimeters away from Seungyoun’s now, and he can feel his warm breath against his own. 

Seungyoun hums, closing his eyes so he can’t watch Seungwoo read through him. “So you asked me to visit Busan with you once you graduated high school?”

“So I asked you to visit with me when I graduated high school.”

Seungwoo’s voice is so soft when he speaks, words barely above a whisper. “I used to wish I could _forget_ how to love you.” He brushes Seungyoun’s hair to the side with his fingers, and Seungyoun needs to learn how to breathe again in the short space that separates them. 

Seungwoo’s eyes are filled with something that looks like desire, something that looks like regret. “I’m not playing games with you. I’m not pretending, and I never have been.”

And when Seungwoo leans in to kiss Seungyoun, he doesn’t back away this time. Instead, he reaches forward to meet him halfway. 

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“I’ll come back to visit.”

“We’re out of time.” 

“Okay.” Seungwoo kisses Seungyoun again, and this time it’s desperate, Seungyoun clinging onto Seungwoo’s arms for something to ground him in reality, because if he doesn’t, he might just slip. 

“Please,” Seungwoo says, voice toeing on a whine; 

“Hyung.”

Seungyoun lifts a hand to press his fingertip into the groove created by Seungwoo’s cheekbone. But he barely touches him before Seungwoo turns his face to kiss at the space where Seungyoun’s fingers meet palm. Seungwoo’s eyelids are heavy over his eyes when he stares at Seungyoun through thin eyelashes and lets his tongue dart out to lick at the groove between his fingers. 

Seungwoo pushes Seungyoun’s hand down again but lets him thread his fingers in his hair, and finds his mouth again, taking Seungyoun’s bottom lip between his teeth. 

“Can you stay tonight?” Seungwoo asks.

Seungyoun shakes his head, pushing away from the other. It doesn’t burn, but the dull aching in his chest and the uneasiness that churns in his stomach makes him wish the hurt was sharper. 

“Have a safe flight tomorrow.”

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


(The winter wind bites as his skin when he heads home. Seungyoun counts the streetlights outside on his way to the bus stop, frozen grey sludge soiling his shoes as he makes his way across the pavement. 

He doesn’t check his phone, even when he feels it vibrate in his pocket, nor does he look back as he leaves.)

  
  
  


Seungyoun doesn’t sleep that night. 

Instead, he writes a song about restless water, running, and broken hearts, and scraps the lyrics and audio files because they don’t feel right. 

It feels stupid, _he_ feels stupid, so he unplugs his monitor, lets the wires hang down to the ground, and counts the number of keys on his keyboard again and again and again until white and black blur together. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Seungwoo’s flight departs at 5:10 AM, and even though Seungyoun is awake, he does not see him off at the airport. He doesn’t text him either, because there’s nothing more he has to say.

And even after so many years, these are the things Seungyoun knows, the things he’s sure of: 

1\. He is good at running. Too good. The bruises on his legs are born from falling and stumbling, the callouses on his fingers from pushing himself too hard into his work, and they don’t look like they’re about to fade any time soon. And time is not on his side, if the Seungwoo dripping through his fingers like liquid honey is any indication of anything. 

2\. After years of running after him, there are things he has learned about Seungwoo, but the one thing he never learns is how to stop chasing. The hot feeling that fills his throat and head when he bids Seungwoo a safe flight is one of multiple, same burning filling his lungs sometimes when he’s writing lyrics or playing guitar

3\. He can’t unlearn how to run. But bones are brittle, and broken ones take a long time to mend. Maybe now it’s time to learn how to heal.

**Author's Note:**

> haha thanks for getting this far !!!!


End file.
